engaging, educating, exploring…

We have an exciting opportunity to join the UCLan and Ri Young Scientist Centre (YSC) team delivering interactive and engaging STEM workshops to young people aged 7-18 years. We are looking for a passionate and enthusiastic individual with recent experience of teaching Science in a secondary school setting. As part of this role you will develop and deliver workshops covering all areas of STEM with a view to enthuse and excite young people about these subjects.

The centre is a collaboration between the University and the Royal Institution of Great Britain (Ri) and is modelled on the L’Oréal YSC based with the Ri. Situated in the heart of the Preston campus, in a busy research and teaching building, the YSC is a vibrant laboratory space dedicated to delivering STEM workshops to school groups and the public. The YSC is part of larger Engagement and Access team, so this role will require input to projects that contribute to the University’s widening participation and public engagement programmes.

Salary: £29,799

Deadline for applications: January 3 2018

For more information about the role please look through the job description found here. To apply, please use the UCLan jobs pages found here.

Are you passionate about public engagement and science communication? We may just have the role for you in the Engage UCLan team! We’re looking to recruit a Public Engagement Coordinator who will help deliver events, activities and projects that engage UCLan staff and students with the wider community. A large part of the role will be contributing to the organisation and planning of the Lancashire Science Festival.

We are looking for someone who has a good knowledge of university research culture and is enthusiastic about encouraging and facilitating others to get involved with public engagement activities. This would be an ideal role for someone who has been working in research and is looking to make a move into public engagement.

Salary: £24983 (Grade F)

Location: Preston, Lancashire

Contract type: Full time, permanent

If you would like to apply, please search the UCLan recruitment pages and submit an online application. For information enquiries, please contact Liz Granger at egrnager(at)uclan.ac.uk.

Teachers- are you passionate about the value of education and inspiring young people? The University of Central Lancashire is looking for your educational expertise, enthusiasm and insight to help develop engaging content to form part of our engagement and access programme.

The University is committed to widening participation in higher education and works to remain open and accessible to everyone regardless of background. Through the engagement and access programme, we run activities with young people from backgrounds underrepresented at university to raise aspirations and improve attitudes towards education and careers. The activities we deliver range from on-campus events, in-school workshops and community-based events.

Job role

This is a summer role, which will involve designing and developing content that can be delivered by our engagement team or current undergraduate students. We are looking for the knowledge, skills and insight of current secondary school teachers to help inform the activities we deliver and ensure they are of a high quality and properly meet school’s needs. We would like the following activities to be developed:

1 hour subject-specific workshops that can be delivered in school by undergraduate students.

Educational activities that can be delivered in our community outreach space InTheCity (situated in the St Georges Centre, in Preston city centre).

Workshops or activities that can be delivered to help aid revision or homework.

Content that is developed can cover any subject area but we are particularly interested in the following subjects: Maths, English, Humanities, Arts and Languages.

The role will be paid at £15/hour and hours will be negotiated at interview. There is scope for a maximum of 30 hours per week over a 4 week period in the summer, dependant on the projects that are proposed.

Have you heard about SaturYAY? It’s our new exciting community kids club which focuses on extended learning activities between children and parents.. and IT’S TOTALLY FREE!

If you are in the area on a Saturday come join us at the UCLan InTheCity pop up shop based in St George’s Shopping centre – Lune street entrance. There’s always lots to going on throughout the session.

Recently, we’ve been focussed on christmas activities for children aged from 2-9 years old. We strive to engage with parents of young children to make life better for them! Each session is an extended learning activity, from kinectic movement and development to understanding the importance of involvement and sharing.

As we mentioned, the event it totally free – meaning no gimmicks. None what so ever!
Come along with your children and engage in a range of activities we have going on, from arts and crafts to a messy play handprint wall. Prams are welcome and we have specific stroller station where you can park your buggy!

The event is staffed by UCLan staff and student staff. Lee is qualified at childcare and is DBS checked, the student staff have undergone relevant HR checks, and the volunteers involved are also DBS checked through our centre of volunteering!

Over the last 6 weeks, every Friday we’ve been working really hard to bring the public of Preston something very special. The University of Central Lancashire has donated a job lot of old wooden science stools to our community up-cycling project. We’ve jumped in at the deep ed with this project and got to grips with it right away. From day one, we’ve been stripping these wooden beauties back down to the bare wood and started creating some creative masterpieces!

We’ve had a range of people from all walks of life get involved in the project, and it’s really starting to pay off. For instance there’s this one old man who comes along week in and week out. Not only does he get stuck into. But he’s also full of extremely useful knowledge of which he is passing onto other participants within the project. He’s taken two stools as a matching pair and gone to town on them. Before he finished the stools – he had already sold them.

Once the stools have been completed, and stained with a lick of varnish and protecter, these will be sold on to the general public with 100% of the profits going to local charities in Preston. That’s the beauty with this type of project. Once we have sold a few stools, the project then becomes a self sustaining project. Not only do volunteers involved within the project benefit, but the wider community also benefit also.

Each week the project gets bigger and better. We’re expecting the project to really take off over the new few weeks – but if you are interested in getting involved and gaining a centre of volunteering ILM accreditation or your CV then please do get in touch. You can contact us on InTheCity@uclan.ac.uk or 01772895373 You can also visit us in the shop – UCLan InTheCity, St George’s Shopping Centre, 51 Lune Street, Preston. PR1 2TU.

This is an exciting opportunity to join the UCLan Outreach and Engagement team working in the award winning UCLan and Ri Young Scientist Centre (YSC) as a Senior Outreach Officer (STEM Engagement).

The YSC is a dedicated outreach laboratory, developed in partnership with the Royal Institution of Great Britain (Ri). Since opening in Autumn 2014 the centre has engaged over 3500 young people aged between 7-18 years with hands-on, in-depth STEM learning.

As part of the role you will lead workshops, help develop new content and contribute to the University’s wider engagement and access programmes. This is a brilliant opportunity for anyone passionate about public engagement, science and working with young people.

For more information and to apply search the vacancies on the UCLan website: http://www.uclan.ac.uk/work/. If you would like to chat about the role you can call me (Liz) on 01772 89 4286 or egrangerATuclan.ac.uk.

As part of the Lancashire Encounter Festival taking place in Preston between Friday 23 – Sunday 25 September, The University of Central Lancashire is hosting a series of events in our pop-up shop, InTheCity (St George’s Shopping Centre, Lune Street). Here’s what we have in store:

Friday 23 September – 11.00am -3.00pm: FREE Lip Balm Making

The UCLan and Ri Young Scientist Centre will be bringing some of our science experiments to InTheCity. Drop in and have a go at making your own lip balm for FREE, which is part of our Cosmetic Chemistry workshop.

Saturday 24 September – 10.00am -12.00noon: FREE Health Fun Day

Join the University of Central Lancashire Health team for a fun-filled morning of learning all about how our brains and bodies work. There’ll be chance to play games, play with giant serotonin balls, have a go at applying bandages and much more! Free refreshments will be provided for accompanying adults.

Saturday 24 September – 1.00pm-3.00pm: Get Connected Workshop

In this 2 hour workshop you will learn how internet and networks between computers work. We will build our own connection cables and then connect to other computers in order to play a co-operative game. This fun and interactive workshop is suitable for anyone over the age of 11 and interested in how computers and the internet work. It will be delivered by a Jonathon Edward who is an Associate Lecturer in Computing at the University of Central Lancashire. Admission is £2.50, and pre-booking is essential. Register here.